Tag: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed’s F-35 Jet a Failure After 17 Years

The Daily Escape:

Cherry Blossoms in snow, Fairfax VA – March 2018 photo by Jen Johnson

Lockheed Martin‘s fifth-generation stealth fighter, the F-35, has cost $406.5 billion so far. And it still has 263 “high priority” unaddressed performance and safety deficiencies. The list of setbacks includes faulty ejection seats, software delays, weapons targeting problems, and helmet-display issues.

The program was launched in 2001. The blog, War Is Boring says:

The American people were assured the new jet would enter service in 2008 and be a high-performance replacement for the military’s aging airframes while only costing between $40 million and $50 million.

But, 17+years later, the F-35 has continuing redesign, test deficiencies, fixes, schedule slippages and cost overruns. And according to War Is Boring (WisB), it’s going into production with many still-unsolved problems:

Despite this, the F-35 Joint Program Office now intends to call—quite arbitrarily—an end to the plane’s development phase and developmental testing. Instead of completing the presently planned development work, the Program Office is now proposing to substitute a vaguely defined F-35 upgrade program called “continuous capability development and delivery.”

This means that the F-35 will begin operational testing this year, using 23 planes that still incorporate the 263 known deficiencies.

And it’s worse than it appears. The reason to build this aircraft was to combat advanced future threats by our competitor’s air forces. However, WisB reports that testing shows that the planes already delivered cannot even effectively address the current threats. That’s a problem. The ancient, battle-proven A-10 is one of the aircrafts the F-35 was designed to replace:

As of now, testing shows the F-35 is incapable of performing most of the functions required for an acceptable close support aircraft, functions the A-10 is performing daily in current combat.

More:

In the air-to-air mission, the current F-35 is similarly incapable of matching legacy aircraft like the F-15, F-16 and F-22.

So, it looks as if we have a mismanaged program that may take many additional years to turn around. Along the way, they have gotten much more expensive. CNBC reports that the cost of each aircraft has doubled:

As it stands now, the unit price for an F-35A — including aircraft, engine and fees — is $94.3 million.

So, it’s actually a worse aircraft than those it supposedly replaces, and it’s more expensive. And, we’re ordering many, many more of them. CNBC reports that the fleet will grow from 280 aircraft to 800-plus by the end of 2021.

And it seems well past the stage where the program could be cancelled, even if the Department of Defense wanted to. The plane has suppliers in all 50 states, a perfect form of political insulation from any effort to scrap the program.

If the F-35 can’t be fixed, we may see a gradual trickle of announcements about additional procurement of A-10s, F-18’s, etc., to plug the gaps. It might turn out that F-35s will be for show, or limited use only, a little like battleships in WWII.

The colossal cost for a program that doesn’t work is mind blowing – all things considered, the F-35 program will cost in the low trillions of dollars. Despite all of the effort, time, and money, it remains an open question if the F-35 will ever live up to the promises the Defense Department made years ago.

The latest annual report from the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, (DOT&E) has this summation: (brackets by WisB)

Finally and most importantly, the program will likely deliver Block 3F [the untested, allegedly “fully combat-capable” F-35 model now entering production] to the field with shortfalls in capabilities the F-35 needs in combat against current threats.

In other words, they acknowledge that the F-35s rolling off the production line will be unable to even deal with existing threats, let alone future ones. Where’s the accountability?

But the F-35 is a success in other ways. It’s been a perfect way for Congress to move taxpayer money to the defense industry. If the object is to keep Lockheed Martin shareholders happy, the F-35 is a roaring success.

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The Pentagon’s Huge Problems with the F-35

The F-35 combat aircraft is the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken by the Pentagon. It will cost $1.5 trillion to build and operate over its lifetime. Most pilots think that the F-35 is being tasked with too many things, from use as a fighter and a bomber, to landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, to performing vertical takeoffs and landings. These are conflicting demands, requiring the plane to be over-configured to accomplish all of them. So, the F-35 is unlikely to handle all of these requirements at a high level.

Despite all of the above, in the Pentagon spending bill that passed last month, Congress approved nearly a half a billion dollars more for the F-35 than the Pentagon even asked for.

Conventional wisdom touts the F-35 as an aerial Swiss army knife, but the F-35 is proving to be more like a butter knife — one that only slices taxpayer dollars. A recent report by the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), highlights the conclusions in the latest F-35 report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). Among the problems highlighted in the DOT&E report:

• Software glitches disrupting enemy identification and weapons employment
• A redesigned fuel tank that continues to demonstrate unacceptable vulnerability to explosion from lightning or enemy fire
• Wing issues that cause loss of controlled flight during high-speed maneuvering, a six-year-old problem that apparently will not be solved without sacrificing stealth or combat capability
• Helmet issues that prevent pilots from seeing things approaching from the side
• Engine problems so severe they’re impeding the test schedule, and generating risky operational decisions
• Maintenance issues leading to over-reliance on contractor support

The Marines’ version of the plane won’t be operational until this summer, while the Navy’s version won’t be operational until at least 2018.

There are accusations that Lockheed Martin has papered over these problems, failing to include certain failures or re-categorizing them to improve program statistics. Taken together, the GAO and DOD reports make for an unambiguous headline:

The F-35 is years away from being the next-gen fighter jet promised by Lockheed to the Pentagon.

More time, more money and unresolved problems. What is going on here?

That’s not all. Head-to-head competition with the Russian SU-30 fighter/bomber was conducted in the US in 2008, and the results favored the Russian aircraft. Now, aircraft have two primary missions, air-to-air combat (ATA), and air-to-ground attack (ATG). The F-35 failed the ATA exercises SIX YEARS AGO.

If you find this summary alarming, consider taking a tranquilizer or two before digesting the full POGO article (“Not Ready for Prime Time”) or the detailed DOT&E report, both of which focus on a subject that are the eventual cost equivalent to the combined GDP’s of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

We are at the point where we will be fielding yesterday’s aircraft solution tomorrow. To a great degree, this is a failure of the Defense Department’s Acquisition Process. POGO believes that the problem is not nearly as much with the detailed laws and regulations that govern the acquisition of military goods, as it is in the management by the people who have been operating the system. In the case of the F-35, while several nations are providing elements of the plane, Lockheed is the sole source contractor for the DOD.

This creates a case of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the idea that misplaced incentives can create unintended and adverse behaviors. For example, an insurance policy with no deductible could embolden some drivers to discount the consequences of reckless driving, raising the likelihood of accidents. Applied to a defense contractor, this policy can cause a heavy economic toll.

The F-35 program is an example of moral hazard. By continuing to lavish cash upon a failing program, Congress risks making failure a financially viable strategy. The predictable result would be more failure. This debacle is, in many ways, a sign of what happens when Congress is no longer the domain of the kind of statesmanlike adult behavior that puts the country first.

Congress itself has incentives to set perverse incentives for others. Unfortunately for the country, the first sign that moral hazard has truly captured our national defense maybe relying on a program that is supposed to be the single answer, one that does not perform, continues to be postponed, and costs far too much.

The second sign will be the inability of our airpower to effectively support our ground and sea military efforts, as and when called upon.

This will happen if bad decisions continue to bleed our resources, and Congress continues to try to make room for the F-35, a weapon that has not proven itself.

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